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Least agency

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The principle, in the OWASP agentic list, of giving an agent no more autonomy than its task needs: agentic behaviour deployed where it is not needed widens the attack surface without adding value 1. The cheapest agent control is the agent not built, such as a fixed workflow with one model call in place of a planner.

Developed in
ch. 23, Governing AI agents
Chapters
ch. 23, AI Agents
Contrast with
Autonomy level
Source
1 numbered reference, listed below

Where it is used

One chapter of the Body of Knowledge uses the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Least agency: mentions per chapter2 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter23 AI Agents: 2 mentions23 AI Agents2No mentions in the other 22 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Least agency: mentions per chapter2 mentions of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter0001020304050607081011121314151617181920212223 AI Agents: 2 mentions223Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of Least agency per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents2Yes
  • 23 · AI Agents Opening 2 mentions
  • Autonomy

    In the EU AI Act and OECD texts, some degree of independence of action from human involvement, which almost every AI system has.

Sources

  1. [1] Top 10 for Agentic Applications 2026 (ASI01 Agent Goal Hijack; ASI02 Tool Misuse and Exploitation; ASI03 Identity and Privilege Abuse; ASI04 Agentic Supply Chain Vulnerabilities; ASI05 Unexpected Code Execution (RCE); ASI06 Memory & Context Poisoning; ASI07 Insecure Inter-Agent Communication; ASI08 Cascading Failures; ASI09 Human-Agent Trust Exploitation; ASI10 Rogue Agents; Least-Agency; per-tool least-privilege profiles; tool poisoning of a legitimate tool's interface under ASI02, a tool compromised at the source under ASI04). OWASP GenAI Security Project. 2025-12-09. https://genai.owasp.org/resource/owasp-top-10-for-agentic-applications-for-2026/ (verified: primary)

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Least agency. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/least-agency. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026leastagency,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Least agency}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/least-agency}
}